


In All, But Blood - Part 1: Unforgivable, Regrettable

by Edo_Hikaro



Series: In All, But Blood (a reboot of Bleach) [1]
Category: Bleach, Bleach (reboot), Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Canon, Angst and Tragedy, Animal Death, Anime/Manga Fusion, Anime/Video Game Fusion, Best Friends, Bishounen, Blink And You Miss It Slash, Blood and Injury, Brotherhood, Canon Backstory, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Corpses, Danger, During Canon, Episode Related, Father-Son Relationship, Fear, Feudalism, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Introspection, Japanese Culture, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mystery, Mysticism, Origin Story, Other, Pain, Partnership, Politics, Pre-Canon, Reflection, Rescue, Rukongai, Seireitei, Shinigami/Zanpakutou Bond, Shinou Shinigami Academy, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Storytelling, Teacher-Student Relationship, War, Zanpakutou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edo_Hikaro/pseuds/Edo_Hikaro
Summary: But the moment Jyuushirou had hurled the rope of the Shihouin Shield into the heavens and tethered the Kikou’ou with the immense strength of his reiatsu, the moment Shunsui had joined him, the moment the youngest pillars of the Gotei Thirteen unleashed their combined reiatsu that shook Soukyoku Hill and exploded the Kikou’ou into a rain of flaming debris, Yamamoto realised that his disciples had drawn a clear line.So begins the saga of the Four Pillars of the Gotei, when Yamamoto stares down his two cherished disciples and feels soul-deep pain and regret as he remembers their inexplicably entwined origins and fates. He founded the Gotei and present-day Soul Society, leniency is a luxury denied to him. To uphold all they have built at the cost of millennia of sacrifices, he will have to destroy the two prodigious souls who are the most brilliant discoveries of his long life, whom he had painstakingly raised and groomed, who have been his extensions as Soul Society's guiding light for over a thousand years, and who are his sons in all ways but blood.●Best read with Story & Series Notes●Final style edit:16 Apr 2019 (origin of Shunsui's bankai reserved for next arc)





	1. The Now

**Author's Note:**

> **EDITION & PUBLICATION HISTORY:**
> 
> In this final style edit completed on 16 Apr 2019, language had been polished to neaten run-on sentences, clarify minor devices and concepts, and overall cadence and pace given the final shine. Plot does not change. With this last shine and buffing, this story is now in its final desired shape.
> 
> ● _First published:_ 8 Dec 2018 ● _First update:_ 14 Mar 2019 ● _Final plot update:_ 20 Mar 2019 ● _Announcements on Tumblr:_ [25 Mar 2019](https://edohikaro.tumblr.com/post/183694339421/the-moment-jyuushirou-had-hurled-the-rope-of-the), [16 Apr 2019 ](https://edohikaro.tumblr.com/post/184221357739/two-millennia-ago-yamamoto-discovered-and-took)
> 
> **ABOUT THIS PART 1 AND 'IN ALL, BUT BLOOD' SERIES:**
> 
> Part 1 is the most important. It kicks off this version of 'Bleach' after Ukitake's destruction of Soukyoku, and sets the tone of the sensei-disciple/father-son/brother-lovers relationships as they deal with the fallout of politics and conspiracies of a stubborn, stagnating, shogunate-like Soul Society government that is lagging behind a rapidly evolving human world (do read [Series Notes](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1201744)).
> 
> Ukitake is the only key supporting canon character whose bankai was not addressed. Some ideas are taken from popular fan theories, but I've given it a zen twist here, to take it completely into another genre, so no canon-typical power-ups and fantastical outfits.
> 
> All canon materials are taken from anime, manga and video game, and bleach.wikia.com. Brain sweat is continually put into this to avoid wince-inducing plot holes, inaccuracies, bad English (my pet peeve!), bad flow, bad characterisations, hidden Mary Sues, etc etc etc.
> 
> Hepburn Romaji system (Latinised Japanese) is used but removing all alphabet stresses so that the names and terms are spelt in English the way it is meant to sound when pronounced by English native speakers. To Japanese or Asian language speakers who scoff at this, know that spelling foreign words according to English phonetics do make it easier for English speakers.
> 
> Queen's English is used throughout.
> 
> **ON CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS:**
> 
> Historical and cultural perceptions of Bleach are derived from cultures of feudal Japan, which share some roots with feudal China. Two main tenets are used:
> 
> ● Feudal societies and cultures of China and Japan hold in the highest regard the moral ideal that being a sensei for a day meant being a parent for life. This ideal was avidly pursued and celebrated by scholars, apprentices and disciples in all arenas from arts, vocations to martial schools. Yamamoto is old fashioned in that way, and it isn't a stretch to believe that he'll pass this value down to his two favourite disciples.
> 
> ● _**No homophobia**_ is portrayed or used as a plot device in this series. This universe is made on feudal Japanese society and culture so no Western concepts and issues here. Homoeroticism in Japan began in the kabuki theatres, paralleling Chinese theatre. Homosexuality was discouraged officially to uphold marriages and procreation, but if any occurred, there was no fuss because it was regarded as private indulgences of the rich and idle. There was little to no social outcry and no public or social persecution. For history buffs, in feudal Japan women were rarely engaged in literary, theatre or dance professions (in feudal China, women were outright forbidden from them) hence beautiful boys or young men were employed to act in heroine and female roles. At times, nobles or wealthy merchants would exclusively patronise actors they fancied, and sometimes romantic or sexual relationships would develop. Wives would know about it and while marriage problems might arise, and authorities sometimes try to tamp it down, the subculture never died out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keeping to his resolve for the greater good, was harder than Yamamoto expected. His ancient, war-hardened heart had lived, and even thrived, through millennia of losses. But he had never faced a loss such as this would become if he carried through the ultimate punishment of his two most treasured disciples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Reading notes:**  
>  • Japanese cultural terms are explained in hyperlinks to the Japanese word.  
> • AO3 doesn't allow opening links in new tabs or windows, so right-click on the link to see the explanations.  
> • This work assumes readers are familiar with the published canon of 'Bleach', hence terms used in canon will not be explained.
> 
>  **Author's creative rights:** This chapter is a derivative work. The author makes no claim of copyright to any part of this chapter except for the thoughts, perspectives, and points-of-view of the character of Yamamoto. However, the author will be pleased to discuss further development of these with the Copyright Owners.

Superheated winds swirled around Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni as he stood staring down the two brilliant souls before him.

They stood their ground, their tall figures limned with flickering vermillion firelight of the inferno blazing around them, their robes stirring in the searing reiatsu winds.

Kyouraku Shunsui and Ukitake Jyuushirou.

Shunsui, the taller of the two, broad shouldered and strong, his apparent ease a mere façade, for beneath the wide rim of his [sugegasa](http://traditionscustoms.com/traditional-fashion/kasa-traditional-japanese-hats) hat his pewter eyes were bleak and his lean aristocratic face desolate as he held Yamamoto’s stare.

And Ukitake Jyuushirou, slender, athletic and lithe, his serene grace unable to hide the anguish in his dark eyes and the fear and anger racking his fine noble face as he stared beseechingly at Yamamoto.

Millennia of thoughts and memories flashed across the fore of his mind.

He had lived too long through too many wars, losses, successes, failures and mistakes. Too much had been sacrificed by too many to allow the precious balance they had achieved be destroyed overnight by a handful of reckless ryoka youths. The rash ignorant children had neither inkling nor care for the impact of their actions. They knew nothing of the terrible cost many had paid to build a millennium of stability that had kept souls, Hollows and humans in finely tuned balance with one another. Cost paid by countless other lives and souls over the millennia. Costs which Shunsui and Jyuushirou themselves had paid hundreds of lifetimes over. With their own blood, their own sweat, their own tears.

Yamamoto would sooner incinerate himself than allow their laws and institutions that upheld this precarious balance be impugned or questioned in any way.

It was irrelevant that he had spent the last three hundred years fighting a secret war against a seeping internal erosion that threatened this delicate balance. To all citizens of Soul Society, the great frame of the leadership and governance must maintain a strong and impregnable front. Thus the rebellion must end and the ryoka put down as examples, along with any whom they had corrupted.

Even if he was blindsided by how the ryoka had corrupted the two whom he had always believed to be the most unassailable pillars of Soul Society.

Shunsui, always peaceable, always choosing revelry over work, and a bit of a rascal and reprobate hiding behind the excuse of being the second son and the younger disciple, yet born with an innate mutability which could turn him ruthless in a flash, devastatingly punishing in a breath, and a nature that harboured a hard mercilessness that could strike at a moment’s decision. He had been the extension of Yamamoto’s long implacable will and prowess imposing order unto war-torn lands and quelling millennia of violent insurgencies from short-sighted warlords whose petty, bloody civil wars ran Soul Society into ruins. He, who had been Yamamoto’s eyes and ears and instincts with his preternatural gift at taking inexplicable leaps of intuition into the midst of chaos only to always land onto the heart of the truth. He, who rebelled against the strictures of traditions even as just a mere boy, yet who became more like Yamamoto with each passing century. He was the one who never failed his missions, who always executed Yamamoto’s orders to his last exact intent, who Yamamoto firmly trusted to watch his back. He was the one destined to follow in Yamamoto’s footsteps, to lead after Yamamoto was gone. The one who was the auxiliary shield about Yamamoto’s most precious, secret centre, his dear elder son, Jyuushirou.

Gentle, kind, dutiful Jyuushirou. So frail in body, so tender in nature, yet born with a gifted mind and a terrible power beyond mortal ken that took everything Yamamoto had to raise and nurture. Tempered by a deep compassion and an unshakeable sense of honour from surviving the dire circumstances of his birth and early life, when Jyuushirou spoke, hearts instinctively listened and followed regardless of the mind. When he acted, souls rallied in unity regardless of all differences. Bound as a mere toddler to a tragic fate by desperate parents, then thrust too young into the yokes of adulthood, his chronic dance with death demanded all of Yamamoto’s obstinacy to pull him back into the shelter of light, his power and sensitivity consumed all of Yamamoto’s resources, skill and dexterity to foster and groom. Yet, Yamamoto was rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. Jyuushirou’s gifts transformed into reality everything Yamamoto intended, he read and knew Yamamoto’s mind without need for words, his loyalty and understanding of the balance and the ways of the soul amplified Yamamoto’s own to levels he never would have achieved otherwise. He was the only soul whose abilities Yamamoto could depend on to aid his clandestine fight against the ones seeking to wrest control of the Gotei. And in all of his ten thousand years of hard sacrifice to Soul Society, Jyuushirou was the only one who opened Yamamoto’s hardened heart to show him his own humanity.

That it was Jyuushirou who instigated this treason of the highest order…

With a soul-piercing stab Yamamoto never thought he could feel again, the reality before him became painfully clear.

A bleak choice faced him. If he made that choice, many would hate him for it, and he would hate himself for it, but these would be nothing compared to what he, personally, and all of Soul Society, would lose.

For millennia Shunsui and Jyuushirou were half the core leadership of the Gotei Thirteen and half the guiding light of their realm. As Yamamoto himself was the institution of Soul Society itself, Shunsui was the extension of his will and prowess, and Jyuushirou the realisation of his mind, his intent, and ultimately, his old petrified heart. If he lost one, he would lose the other. The loss would be unimaginable, the consequences unquantifiable, the only certainty was that none would escape its aftermath. The alternative however… what could even _be_ the alternative?

He founded the Gotei Thirteen nearly ten thousand years ago at the height of its bloodiest era. He had only one vision: to return Soul Society to its rightful balance. He had gathered to him twelve of the most renowned and terrifying warriors and ruthlessly, violently, methodically, thrust the seeds of stability into the broken realm. It had taken him a full millennia to quell the worst conflicts. Even in that early dawn, he had known that the Gotei Thirteen would need to evolve into a new kind of leadership to lead and nurture the fragile stability they were wrangling at such a high cost. The new era would require a leadership that was powerful like its pioneers but in different ways. They could no longer solely be a feared fighting force. Their lust for battle would need to be balanced by an equal passion for compassion, their uncompromising adherence to rules tempered by understanding and humanity, their wont for removing obstacles with swift punitive violence complemented by masterful subtlety and subterfuge. To preserve the costly peace, they would need to keep in line the feudal clans, to become a force to be reckoned with upon the battlefields as well as in the courts and councils. And he had understood even then that he would need to seek beyond their group to find these talents.

Shunsui and Jyuushirou had been what he had needed, gifted to him by kami when he had needed them the most, even if he did not realise it at the time. He had nurtured them over centuries, and relied on them almost two thousand years. Soul Society would not be what it was today without them. Over the course of time, they had become the sons he never had.

That they now did what they had done with full knowledge of the high stakes at risk and the consequences…

Especially Jyuushirou. Gentle, understanding, dutiful Jyuushirou, who had ever only vexed Yamamoto with his complete lack of consideration for himself... did the last millennia now mean nothing to him? Did he not work selflessly and exclusively beside Yamamoto himself during the last three centuries to hunt down those who would weaken the Gotei?

And Shunsui, whose loyalty for his soul brother had turned to love, both which were painstakingly engineered by Yamamoto himself, had his regard for Jyuushirou overtaken his loyalty to Soul Society and the cause of the Gotei? Did their millennia of war and bloodshed now pale so much in comparison?

For Yamamoto, as the founder of the Gotei Thirteen and originator of laws of Soul Society, to show leniency and favouritism for a treason of this extent – he would cause an immeasurably worse outcome. Any sign of his leniency would send the message that double-standards and hypocrisy were allowed since the very founder who had ruthlessly wiped out these immoral values would flout his own principles for those he favoured. The authority of their laws would be questioned, the enforcement power of the Gotei would lose credibility and standing, and their enemies, who had furtively spent the last three centuries plotting to depose him and wrest control of their military power, would jump at the chance to weaken them by publicly instigating malcontents and fan the flames of sedition in the masses. If that happened, Soul Society would begin the treacherous slide back into the dark ages of chaos, bloodshed and mass suffering which once wrecked and ruined their realm, and reawaken the thirst for revenge of clans whose long stubborn memories of petty slights and feuds never faded. Civil wars would once again spark as easily as cinders on dry hay, and mass misery would return to beset souls who returned to Soul Society from the Living World, who would expect rest and paradise, only to be plunged into the hell Soul Society had once been.

Yamamoto would not be able to mete out the usual punishment. The stakes were too high.

These were his sons. They had been extensions of himself for thousands of years.

This was no choice any ordinary soul could make.

Yamamoto could not be an ordinary soul. He did not have the luxury of choice allowed to ordinary souls.

Intense regret welled in the hard fossilised place which was his heart. The cold ancient shell shuddered deep within its core threatening to break apart and flood his resolve to stay his course.

_Had the golden age come to an end? After nightmare centuries of bloodshed and sacrifices? After two thousand years of dedication and care of the two souls who became as precious to him as his own flesh and blood?_

_How had they come to this point?_


	2. Two Thousand Years Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How it all really begun, as told by the memories of Yamamoto before he had to do what he had to do. 
> 
> Trace the origin stories of Ukitake and Kyouraku, from how they were discovered as boys, to Yamamoto's care and instruction of them, their trials and tribulations, how Yamamoto inadvertently orchestrated the relationship of his two wards, how they achieved shikai, how Ukitake attained bankai, all set in an early, chaotic feudalistic Soul Society ransacked by warring clans and the pre-canon Gotei Thirteen which was less organised and less civilised than the Gotei Thirteen we know today, when the Seireitei had not yet been built.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Reading notes:**  
>  • Japanese cultural terms are explained in hyperlinks to the Japanese word.  
> • AO3 doesn't allow opening links in new tabs or windows, so right-click on the link to see the explanations.  
> • This work assumes readers are familiar with the published canon of 'Bleach', hence terms used in canon will not be explained.
> 
>  **Author's creative rights:** This chapter is a transformative work. The characters, character devices and plot cues are taken from the published canon of 'Bleach' and the chapter's storyline was developed based on clues left by the Copyright Owners. However, all other details are created by the author and belong solely to the author, and whose further development the author will be pleased to discuss with the Copyright Owners.

[Two millennia ago](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Events), Yamamoto discovered and took under his wing two special young boys. The very reishi of Soul Society had rent and split with the force of their reiatsu when, one after the other, their reiryoku erupted for the very first time, separately, yet inexplicably entwined.

# # # # # #

The emergence of Shunsui’s reiryoku was a sudden, thunderous quake through the very reishi of the earth, sending the air tremoring and penetrating Yamamoto to his war-hardened soul. All twelve of his comrades had been frozen by the same soul-shaking force. Yamamoto had been the first to recover, and with nerves and sinews still shuddering with the aftershocks, had immediately set out on a solo hunt for the source of the phenomenon. He had instinctively known it was a reiatsu flare, but one with such unbelievable range and speed that it had all but dissipated by the time he emerged from shunpo in the outskirts of their stronghold bordering East Rukongai. However, its signature was extremely distinct, reminiscent of an underground cave upended from the very bowels of the earth itself, and even more distinctive was the swathe of souls and livestock wallowing prone on the ground in abject misery and fear, and the scattering of bodies of birds stunned unconscious and fallen out of the sky. Yamamoto had followed its trail single-mindedly, letting himself be led unerringly eastwards for three days and two nights, as if the one who left the trail had a firm destination in mind, almost losing it on the second day as its signature began to fade. He was forced to drop out of shunpo at increasing intervals to track it manually, moving farther and farther out towards the further reaches of the eastern wild regions, until on the afternoon of the third day, until he entered a grievously run-down settlement populated by near mindless souls surviving in poverty and filth. He spared the wretches barely any attention as his concentration desperately tracked the fading reiatsu until he passed the outskirts of that miserable settlement, finally stepping into a clearing where a large, lonely ancient [sakaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleyera_japonica) tree stood sheltering the near collapsed ruins of what had once been a shrine.

Yamamoto had drawn Ryuujin Jakka and entered with caution, for a long lifetime of warfare had instilled in him that the greater the reiatsu, the greater would be the threat. Thusly he was completely blindsided when the trail ended at a surprisingly well-kept altar, in the small, shivering form of a terrified boy huddled against the strangely well-maintained statue of the shrine’s deity, one which appeared to be a forgotten god shaped like a forearm.

Cobwebs, leaves, twigs and soil were matted in the boy’s dark wavy hair. His wide pewter eyes were stark with barely controlled terror as he stared at Yamamoto. He was about five years old, clad in a set of dirtied silk summer haori and kimono sporting fresh ragged tears, his dirt-smudged little face bearing traces of aristocratic lineage. Shock had frozen Yamamoto into immobile speechlessness, for the child was much too young to have released such a tremendous force. Yet he was not mistaken. The echoing shadows of that deep-earth reiatsu he had tracked so relentlessly for nearly three full days were still emanating from the small, trembling body of this noble-born boy barely out of his diapers.

The extreme danger of the situation had decided Yamamoto then and there. Such a reiryoku, if left alone, uncontrolled or, worse, mismanaged, would draw all manner of malice, power-hungry attention, and Hollows. And, after what he had seen in its wake, if remaining unschooled, would indiscriminately lay waste to any living thing within its sphere. The only way to prevent such power from falling into the wrong hands or cause more disasters would be for him to take the boy into his personal charge.

He had sheathed his zanpakutou and, summoning long disused gentleness, held out his hand towards the child. It had been all Yamamoto could manage, for expressions of soft emotions had long ago deserted him. Kami must had favoured him, for the tear-and-dirt-smudged face continued staring at him for only a few heartbeats more before a small grubby hand reached for his fingers. As their hands touched, a warmth flooded through Yamamoto like a hot, living bond. Then he had gathered the child up and placed him on his back, and after all these millennia, he still remembered those grubby, chubby hands clinging onto his worn, quilted maroon haori and the ringing of childish delighted laughter in his ears as he bore the child piggyback through rapid shunpo all the way back to the [shiro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_castle) of the Gotei Thirteen.

The little boy had adjusted to the Gotei immediately upon his first bath and meal. Yamamoto had pried several times during their return trek before finally, faced with the bribe of a new wooden spinning top, the child had given up his name, Shunsui. Within a week, little Shunsui had explored every nook and cranny of the shiro and crawled at least once into every lap of Yamamoto’s twelve taichou and those of several other adjutants, inciting a small uproar of amusement, indulgence and consternation, for never before had a child been let loose with such impunity among the battle-scarred and war-toughened shinigami souls. It was only on the seventh day, during noon repast, that the boy had reluctantly, upon being asked for the umpteenth time, said that his other names before his name of Shunsui were, in that order, Kyouraku no Jirou Souzousuke. At the revelation, Yamamoto had felt another emotion he had thought long dead: that of exasperation. It was apparent that the boy, at the mere tender age of five, already possessed deviousness enough to know what not to say to get what he wanted. And what he wanted became quickly clear by the end of the meal – he wanted to stay in the shiro with his new wooden spinning top, his new pallet in Yamamoto’s bedroom, and all his adoptive uncles and aunts, and never again return home.

It was a childish request that Yamamoto had secretly wished to grant but knew immediately he could not. For Shunsui was none other than the youngest grandson of the head of the Kyouraku Clan, the ancient family descended from northern mountain tribes who ferociously had guarded the northern mountain passes for millennia since shinigami began. Lord Kyouraku held a fearsome infamy for his intolerance of outsiders and his military mind and prowess, matched only by the notoriety of his obsessive insularity and stubborn political aloofness which kept him standing disdainfully apart from the feuds wrecking the western lands from north to south. He and his warriors took extreme violent exception when any tried to penetrate his mountainous terrain without his express permission. The reasons for his long, stubborn guardianship of the northern mountain passes were lost to the mists of time, as was the ancestry of the Kyouraku lineage, for Lord Kyouraku had helmed the Kyouraku Clan for over six thousand years. His youngest grandson’s reiryoku had burst forth as the boy travelled with his parents and elder brother on a formal visit to a prospective bride for the Kyouraku heir in the south, and in terror and rebellion, little Shunsui had run away from his hapless caretakers who had been too blinded by fear of punishment by their clan head to notice that they were frightening more than calming their juvenile distressed charge. It was a testament to the strength of little Shunsui’s newfound power that the juvenile had escaped as unscathed and as far away as he had, alone and defenceless through wild, dangerous lands, to find his way to that strange derelict shrine in the far east. And armed with these knowledge, Yamamoto had set out with little Shunsui, his Kenpachi Unohana Yachiru in tow, with the ambition of bearding the dragon in its lair to gain guardianship and instruction of the small boy who was once again riding piggyback on his back.

Lord Kyouraku, however, had proven to be every bit as intractable as his reputation had said he would be. It took another five years of persistent visits, courtships and subtle briberies before Yamamoto succeeded in persuading the rigid mountain warlord that a formal alliance of the Kyouraku Clan with the Gotei Thirteen would play a historic role in bringing order to Soul Society. To seal that alliance, Yamamoto himself would take young Kyouraku Shunsui under his personal care and instruction as his [uchi-deshi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchi-deshi). He still remembered that early autumn morning he had sat seiza in the Kyouraku main halls, when Lord Kyouraku, with visible displeasure and dire warning on his lean, aristocratic face, formally ceded his now ten-year-old grandson into Yamamoto’s guardianship and personal instruction.

Thus had begun Yamamoto’s coaching of Shunsui in the mastery of his tremendous reiryoku. In addition he enrolled his new ward into the Genji School he had founded to round out his education. It was like touching a lighted match to dry tinder: the boy’s gifts practically bloomed overnight, attaining his asauchi within a season, and he quickly became something of a prodigy, though his wayward penchant for frequently inventing new mischief quickly revealed why it had taken Yamamoto five years for his grandfather to part with him: Shunsui had been rambunctious and playful to the point of indolence in his studies, and had remained in his exasperated parents’ household only because his grandfather was completely charmed by his childish insouciance. To Yamamoto, however, his juvenile ward was merely a victim of a sharp mind and inexhaustible energy given no adequate release. Thus he orchestrated opportunities for the child to develop other mentorships with his twelve fellow taichou partly in hopes that he would receive more forms of teachings to occupy his quicksilver mind, and partly to spread out his restless energy so that Yamamoto himself could sometimes find some peace. The results had been uneven at best, and a litany of complaints at worst. Nevertheless, Yamamoto had persisted, for he was determined to nurture the boy as much as possible. He believed that a natural phenomenon like Kyouraku Shunsui did not occur more than once in any lifetime, if it even occurred at all.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would soon be blessed again, in even greater measure.

# # # # # # 

Three months into his discipleship, Shunsui achieved true control of his reiatsu and earned his asauchi. They had retired to their rooms after a simple, celebratory evening repast. Yamamoto had barely fallen asleep when the heavens broke and what resembled an entire displaced ocean and electrical sea storm slammed down upon Soul Society, sending thundering quakes through its very reishi. He found himself in the room of his young uchi-deshi before he was fully conscious, zanpakutou drawn, the shaking body of Shunsui clinging to his side as lightning tore the black skies and tidal waves pummelled the walls and windows. Then Yachiru had burst into the room, her blue eyes glowing dark-violet, and had told him, in a tensed voice, “We must go.”

He had not immediately known what that had portended.

Shunsui had been strangely quiet and anticipatory as Yamamoto entrusted him into the care of the other taichou before he set off with Yachiru into the roaring tempest. He had thought nothing more of his ward’s atypical response, for tracking the source of the storm immediately stretched his skills to their limits. The lightning, wild winds and crashing sheets of saltwater had pounded them from all directions seemingly from nowhere, with no originating point. It was only when, by sheer chance, Yamamoto detected a strange dark core in the worst part of the tempest, like a heart of nothingness, that he knew he had found the centre of the storm. Calling Yachiru to him, he had led them straight towards the black eye, which had seemed to call out to him with an otherworldly desperation. Pushing shunpo to its limits, they tightly pursued the black heart through the unnatural tempest, never taking a rest, covering in hours what would have taken days, until they burst into a storm-lashed clearing.

Charred, soaked corpses littered the muddy ground, the remains of their burnt clothing identifying them as bandits and rogue soldiers. Among them two horses lay gutted, their saddlery muddied and their manes and tails indistinguishable from the soaked, runny ground. Beyond the corpses, an ancient tree trembled and groaned under the onslaught of the storm, its lowest boughs sheltering a thin, pale youth who stood shaking, drenched to his skin, short white hair plastered to his forehead, his torn light-blue yukata dark with blood, his outstretched arms protectively shielding a clutch of dark-haired children. When the youth saw them, he stumbled back in fear as a bolt of lightning strobed from the skies and exploded the ground near Yamamoto’s feet. Sparks, mud and water sprayed, driving him back several steps.

“Wait!” Yachiru had called out to the youth, taking a step forwards despite the danger.

Yamamoto counted seven children behind the youth, five boys and two girls, of various ages and heights, all with rain-plastered black hair, dark terrified eyes, and fair skins. Their fine features, frightened and drenched with tears and rain, bore a strong resemblance to one another and in particular, to their white-haired protector. The black core Yamamoto had been tracking condensed into a tumultuous force crashing out from the white-haired youth in invisible suffocating tidal waves. Inexplicably the seven other children were unaffected. Yamamoto inhaled sharply when he detected a dark barrier shielding them, its signature exactly the same as the wild turbulent forces flooding from the youth. Yachiru detected it simultaneously, and they exchanged a glance in wordless agreement. Standing his ground, Yamamoto allowed her to take the lead.

He had watched as his most bloodthirsty taichou, titled the Kenpachi, wrapped her reiryoku about herself and in the next heartbeat, all traces of her insatiable bloodlust vanished, replaced by a gentle demeanour and a beautiful, comforting face. She walked into the slashing sheeting rain like a swan gliding over still water, serenely drawing close to the trembling, injured youth, both her palms raised and open in friendship. The youth, no more than thirteen yet bearing the determination and gravity of an adult, stood his ground even as he looked like the next gust of wind would knock him over. His complexion was almost as white as his hair, and despite clearly being the eldest, his features were even finer and more delicate than his brothers and sisters. He kept his eyes trained on Yachiru as she came to a pause before him and the siblings he clearly protected. The lashing winds carried her gentle words to Yamamoto.

“It is alright. You are safe now. We will help you.”

Terror and pain flashed in the youth’s dark eyes even in the poor light. He kept an admirable control over himself as he listened to Yachiru’s introductions and explanations for their sudden appearance. The Kenpachi had chosen to give him the plain truth: his dangerous reiryoku had drawn their attention and would draw more dangers if he did not accept their help. Tensed with anticipation Yamamoto had waited as the youth digested the new knowledge while trembling hard to stay on his feet, his expression visibly conflicted over whether to trust the help so miraculously offered. His physical injuries won out in the end. With an unnatural suddenness, the storm abated, the wildly thrashing tremendous reiryoku diminished, the blackness about the children dissipated, and the youth swayed, his eyes rolling up into his head. Amid screams of “[Nii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics#Familial_honorifics)-chan!” from juvenile voices, Yamamoto suddenly found himself among them and the bleeding, injured youth limp in his arms. He had moved without thought and had caught the swooning youngster as gently as if he was his own son. Then he had looked up at Yachiru and been stunned when he caught sight of what lay a distance behind her.

There, at the end of the clearing, stood the ruined shrine where he had first discovered Kyouraku Shunsui.

They had gathered the children and made temporary camp inside the shrine, where Yamamoto observed the fresh remains of a recent ritual. Two days had passed before the white-haired youth regained consciousness under Yachiru’s emergency care, and Yamamoto learned that they had found and rescued the last descendants of the Ukitake Family. The white-haired youth, forced prematurely into the position of the head of the family upon his father’s death the year before, was the eldest son of the widowed Ukitake matriarch. She had named him Jyuushirou at birth, and that year she had become too ill from heartbreak at the loss of her husband to join the annual family pilgrimage to that shrine. Her brood of eight had set off on their own accompanied by their old family retainer, a war veteran, who had sacrificed himself the previous day to save his young charges from a Hollow, leaving the vulnerable group to fend for themselves until they reached the shrine. Jyuushirou had led his siblings to complete the family's rituals and they had been preparing to leave for home when they were set upon by criminals. The stress and danger they had fallen into broke his tenuous hold over the internal forces that had plagued him since he was small, with the explosive results that had drawn Yamamoto and Yachiru. When Jyuushirou recovered enough to concentrate, Yamamoto imparted to him the first fundamental technique of control and then started him on the basics of mastering his reiryoku, for his decision had already been made the moment he had caught the youth in his arms.

Massive reiryoku depletion tremendously slowed Jyuushirou’s healing, but the area was too dangerous to linger with a large group of children. Yamamoto had thus taken off his worn, oversized quilted yukata, wrapped Jyuushirou in it, entrusted him into Yachiru’s continuing care, then led the second Ukitake son into breaking camp and forming a small, tight procession as they departed the shrine under cover of the night. Together, they had undertaken the long and dangerous trek back to the children's home and mother, the presence of their small group tightly cloaked beneath Yamamoto’s Bakudou spells. For five days and four nights they passed through lands, towns and settlements ransacked by electrical sea storm that had mysteriously thundered down from the heavens and just as inexplicably had disappeared. They passed countless survivors praying fervently to appease the kami and the Soul King, and throughout the journey, Yamamoto and Yachiru through unspoken agreement did not stop, but forged onwards keeping silent on their knowledge that the disaster was not of any supernatural making, but triggered by the distant explosion of reiatsu from a terrified and wounded youth who simply lost control for a moment. They had needed no discussion between them; the devastating aftermath alone was irrefutable proof that they had found something else, a terrible power too untamed and too elemental to be understood.

They had reached the Ukitake estate with no incident, and the ailing matriarch of the family had stumbled out in a rush, carried by her maids, clearly too ill to move, yet she had offered them her finest lodgings without question in abject relief at the safe return of all her children. Then the sight of her ailing firstborn had sent her into panic, and so distraught she had become that she quickly succumbed to her own illness. Yachiru had done what she could for the generous lady but privately, informed Yamamoto that the noblewoman was beyond cure, for hers was an emotional affliction of the heart wrought by the loss of the husband she dearly loved. As they stayed with the family at the estate over the following week, as Yamamoto observed a close-knit family shepherded by a loving, if uneducated and rather superstitious woman, and led by the bright gentle spirit and intelligence of her sickly eldest son, he learnt that he was observing the last of a lower noble clan fallen on hard times through the countless civil wars, whose long line of ancestors had never exhibited any reiatsu strong enough to even qualify for training with the sword, let alone produce a descendant so frail in body yet could be so strong as to harbour such an indescribably tremendous power. The mystery had gripped him and eaten at him. He saw how the difficult circumstances in his early life was shaping and building Jyuushirou’s character right before his very eyes, and in that few day, he firmly believed that what he was seeing, that he was encountering, had to be nothing short of the work of the kami.

Thus spurred, Yamamoto had commenced negotiations with the ailing matriarch to formally cede Jyuushiro into his guardianship and personal instruction. In return, he offered generous terms of support and care for her family from the Gotei Thirteen until all seven remaining Ukitake offspring attained independence. Earning his immense respect, and showing him exactly the place with which she held her firstborn in her heart, the noble lady had politely but firmly declined to give up her high-maintenance child despite her desperate financial situation. Nevertheless, Yamamoto had persisted, and they had bargained and bartered long and hard into the night every day and every night for the next seven days and seven nights.

And when, three weeks later, Yamamoto finally led the caravan transporting thin, pale, suffering Jyuushirou through the portcullis of the Gotei shiro, if Yachiru had also observed Shunsui’s inexplicable and immediate attachment to his strange new peer, neither of them spoke a word of it.

# # # # # # 

Surprising everyone, the noble Lady Mother Ukitake lingered on until she witnessed, with proud tears and an even prouder mien, Jyuushirou turn twenty-one and achieve shikai, before passing peacefully one month later to join her beloved husband at last. Yamamoto received the news on the late morning of a deep winter’s day filled with stark barren branches of sakura trees. He had called Jyuushirou to share a tea in his study, and had mentally tried to compose how he would deliver the news as he watched his eldest ward and uchi-deshi sit across from him sipping the hot brew, his clear ivory cheeks warming above the collar of the old quilted yukata he had never quite returned. The maroon colour of the robe had dulled to a muddy rust-brown beyond hope of any restoration kidou, but Jyuushirou still favoured it, and Yamamoto had let him keep it, telling himself that Choujirou had tailored it too large for him in the first place, and it was a waste to discard a perfectly serviceable garment. As his mind worked to frame painful words into less painful sentences, Yamamoto had taken the chance to silently observe the transformations he had laboriously wrought through the last eight tumultuous years.

And he had been immeasurably gratified with what he had seen that late winter morning.

For Jyuushirou had bloomed into a tall, lithe and graceful young man. Where his young frame had once been weak and wavering, he now carried himself straight and supple as a bamboo sapling and moved with a lightness and agility that made his tread soundless and his motions flowing like water. Diligent and disciplined in academic studies, fierce and stunning on the training fields, he proved astonishingly gifted with the sword, phenomenally prodigious in the ways of kidou, with an unexpected talent for scholarship of politics, law and psychology, and a natural affinity for the healing arts and music. His doe eyes of boyhood had matured into a soft dark mahogany glimmering from beneath long arching black brows, their depths now keen with a deep intellect and perception beyond his years. His white hair had grown long, and he now wore it bound in a gleaming herringbone braid that tended to fall over one wide sloping shoulder. His fine features, delicate even as a youth, were blossoming with an angular beauty that had begun drawing attention. And when he spoke now, the breathless weakness of his illness was gone, replaced by a gentle, lyrical deep tenor that carried a subtle vibrato hinting at a promising singing voice.

He had come a long way from the thin, pale, wounded thirteen-year-old who had lain a kaidou shield away from death, first throughout that long and dangerous journey from the Ukitake estates to the Gotei stronghold, then during the three consecutive years of rocky convalescence in Yachiru’s healing room and herb garden.

Raising and nurturing Jyuushirou had been an ordeal which tested Yamamoto in ways he never knew he could still be tested, and to his own astonishment, uncovered in his old battle-hardened soul a softness and humanity he had believed were long burned to cinders. Yet it was still an ongoing trial, for Jyuushirou’s immense reiryoku remained persistently unruly and destructive like spiteful dangerously powerful children that resisted any form of control, while his health continued to oscillate between unpredictable bouts of stability and relapses. His devastating power and incredible talents, however, were encased in such a gentle and sensitive nature, that it demanded all of Yamamoto’s dexterity to coax Jyuushirou out of his shell and instruct him in the ways of shinigami martial disciplines. Being sensei to Jyuushirou was fraught with such complexities that Yamamoto had been constantly kept on his toes. It had been the complete opposite of his experience instructing Shunsui, whose gifts and personality had immediately sparked and flourished like wildfire with applications of strict rigorous regiments.

And further testing Yamamoto’s resolve were the unexpected, and increasingly strident, opposition he faced as he channelled attention and resources on his fragile juvenile charge. Yamamoto acknowledged that Jyuushirou’s life in the Gotei could not have begun on a worse footing, arriving so drained of reiryoku that he was all but dead, and languishing in a recovery so infuriatingly long and beset with countless setbacks, it did appear that he had been wasting the precious resources of the Gotei on soul condemned to die young.

Yet throughout the years of trials and tribulations of raising and grooming his delicate elder ward and disciple, Yamamoto kept firmly locked in his mind the near complete destruction he had seen while escorting the Ukitake children home. No one else understood his purpose, or shared his belief and faith in what kami had given to Soul Society. First their allied clans, and then his own eleven taichou, saw only a dying boy whose frequent lapses of illness strained their lean reserves. They questioned in ever louder and suspicious voices Yamamoto’s judgement and motive in taking in the underaged Ukitake lord whom all healers and priests had already abandoned. Only Yachiru, who had travelled with Yamamoto through the wreck left in the wake of Jyuushirou’s reiatsu storm, and Choujirou, ever loyal to Yamamoto and his cause, understood, and appreciated every precious reishi of progress they made. They stood tight and steadfast at his side as he countered the alliance council and his own Gotei taichou move for move against their attempts to repeal his support for the Ukitake Family and evict his struggling ward and uchi-deshi who still depended wholly on Yamamoto to control his unruly reiryoku. Throughout those precarious years Yamamoto allowed none of these troubles to leak to his two charges, nor to the Gotei rank and file. The only reprieve he was given was that out of their long respect for him, his opposition had kept their actions honourable and limited to only within the knowledge of the alliance council.

In face of all these, bolstering Yamamoto’s conviction every single day, was Jyuushirou himself. He responded to Yamamoto’s shelter and care with quiet, unflagging determination, obeying his every word and instruction and training ceaselessly to surpass expectations. When Yachiru took a particular interest in Jyuushirou’s gifts for herbology and began instructing him in the ways of the healing arts, Yamamoto subtly nudged her into volunteering her assistance in the engineering of Jyuushirou’s particular asauchi. When she had noticed Jyuushirou’s curiosity about the [nodachi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cdachi) form of Minazuki in its sealed state, Yamamoto had shared with her his worry that the current discipline of Zanjutsu might not be suitable for his lightly built ward, with the satisfying result that she had taken Jyuushirou under her direct wing and began to impart to him the rare, ancient, deadly form of Zanjutsu which had built her terrifying battle reputation. When Yamamoto noticed Shunsui’s growing adoration and protectiveness of his older disciple-brother, he guiltlessly seized the leverage and encouraged his younger uchi-deshi to become the emotional support Jyuushirou needed. As Jyuushirou gained in strength and confidence, his fear thawed and his innate gentleness and kindness shone through until finally, timidly, his promise began to blossom like a tremulously awakening spring at a harsh winter’s end.

Kami had been on his side. Yamamoto’s painstaking, patient dedication and orchestrations unexpectedly bore fruit at Jyuushirou’s final graduation demonstration of Zanjutsu and Kidou, his final test before becoming a full-fledged shinigami warrior. As per the traditions of the Genji School, the final graduation demonstration tests were always held on the student’s twenty-first birthday. It was a triumphant occasion for Yamamoto and his small adoptive family. Jyuushirou had lived to see his age of majority, and despite his late start and first three years of tremendous struggles, he had mastered the ten-year shinigami education in a matter of eight years, showing an exceptional gift in Kidou that was second only to Yamamoto himself.

Then three months before Jyuushirou’s scheduled final graduation test, Yamamoto’s personal triumph was doused when a council messenger had arrived with a private missive to deliver the first joint petition of the alliance council. While the most powerful clans had been absent from the petition, three-quarters of the council had signed it, and its statements respectfully informed Yamamoto that if he did not repeal his support of the Ukitake Family and evict his eldest ward after the test, they would issue an overriding decree to Jyuushirou directly. The petitioners clearly saw nothing of Jyuushirou’s prodigious achievements. All they still saw was a young sickly soul who would continue to deplete their resources and reserves and never achieve full independence.

That had been Yamamoto’s last straw. For the first time since facing opposition to his decision, he had been spurred into taking active political offensive against his own allies. He had immediately set out to make a grand occasion of the graduation test and ceremony. The Ukitake siblings and lady mother were invited and given the best accommodations in the shiro and the best spectator seats at the arena. All seats of the honour were given to the petitioners, who had confidently accepted his invitations convinced that Jyuushirou would fail. The rest of the Gotei, unaware of the political tension, had roused into that festive, anticipative mood they always did prior to every demonstration test, and Yamamoto had ruthlessly orchestrated for Shunsui to fan the flames of morale, excitement and camaraderie. He had been rewarded by the sight of Jyuushirou’s friends and comrades rallying rank and file shinigami and undergraduates to cheer him on, for his eldest ward’s affability and kindness had long since won their hearts and care. None other had been the wiser of how desperate their situation had truly been, save for Yachiru and Choujirou, and Yamamoto had strictly kept it that way.

Thus Yamamoto had ensured they endured, and obliquely retaliated, until the evening of [Winter’s Solstice](https://wow-j.com/en/Allguides/other/tips_manners/01466_en/#1), the day of Jyuushirou’s birth twenty-one years ago. While Shunsui assisted Jyuushirou to prepare himself, their friends and comrades had prepared the arena. Kidou briars were lit around the perimeter walls of the shiro and the ceremonial flames of the sparring arena was set ablaze. In that velvety indigo black of that deepest of all winter nights, lit only by firelight and the soft heavenly glow of the moon and constellations, Jyuushirou had emerged and taken centre stage on the arena, freshly scrubbed and clad in his new black shihakushou, his long, thick white braid gleaming upon his black-clad shoulder with fiery hues and his white porcelain skin warmed with a faint rose. With his light soundless grace, he had executed the ceremonial bow and greeting, then closed his dark eyes for a heartbeat. And then he had moved.

Throughout the shiro they could have heard a pin drop.

Even all the naysayers and those who had striven long and persistently to be rid of him, had held their breaths.

All had watched mesmerised, for so entrancing was Jyuushirou as his lithe supple figure flowed through the fluid complex movements of the ancient katas with his long elegantly curved asauchi, his dark eyes calm and glowing blue-white withholding a vast unnamed power as he manipulated kidou energies with his swordplay, he resembled nothing less than the mythical ocean kami descended to the mortal plane to play with sword and magics. Yachiru had watched with red-rimmed eyes and fierce intense pride as her protégé seamlessly and masterfully segued through kata after kata, the flashing silver of his long, slim, curving steel weaving dancing swathes of blue-white reiatsu energies across the arena, sending a faint ozone scent wafting into the frozen night air and gently heaving ripples of restrained power across the entire space and over every spellbound spectator, bewitching every soul with his soundless ethereal lethal grace and beauty. So binding a spell Jyuushirou had woven, that when the high stone walls behind the ring of spectators exploded and poured forth an army of black-clad assassins, every single one of them had been caught unawares.

Battle instincts had awoken and Yamamoto had leapt directly into battle unsealing Ryuujin Jakka as he did, even as the Kenpachi flew at the invaders with her long black hair streaming and Minazuki drawn straight into bankai and sweeping a murderous wave of blood through the pouring enemies. Jyuushirou had sprung straight from kata trance into a sudden intense lethal strike, and from the flanks Shunsui spun into the melee with his asauchi whirling. Shinigami all around erupted in anger and with blood curdling cries, surged to meet the invaders with zanpakutou out and thirsting for vengeance. In the narrow window of confusion, a detail of the ronin abruptly broke from the main body and aimed directly for the Ukitake lady and her children, their swords speeding towards their fleeing forms. Someone screamed. The lead ronin was unnaturally fast and had speared the leg of the youngest Ukitake girl.

A cry of fury and fear had erupted from Jyuushirou and in that same instant, blinding blue-white reiatsu crackled throughout the atmosphere as lightning strobed from the skies and struck down, charring the ronin to a stump in one sight-searing flash. Yamamoto's vision had flashed white, then black, then white and then black again, and when he urgently blinked away the afterimages, sudden screams of agony pierced through the noise of battle to reach his ears. When he could see again, he first saw a black-and-white blur whirling and slicing through the ranks of assassins, then as he schooled his vision, he saw the whipping white flash of a long braid, two long blades twirling and slashing faster than fountaining blood and flying body parts. Belatedly he realised he was seeing Jyuushirou decimating the horde of killers with such viciousness that he physically repelled the invaders in a tidal wave of reiatsu, throwing them flailing into the ranks of enraged shinigami who swarmed in and ruthlessly minced them to pieces. Then the last enemy was dead, silence and stillness abruptly fell, and in the centre of the gore and bloodbath stood Jyuushirou, his new shihakushou glistening darkly with blood, his white porcelain face pattered with stark crimson droplets, his dark long-lashed eyes looking dazedly down at the strange, stunning pair of slender long swords lethally humming in his pale hands. He had raised his glowing eyes and immediately sought out Yamamoto, and said their name was Sougyo no Kotowari.

And Yamamoto had taken one look at the wicked backwards curving secondary blades rising from the back of each sword and the blood-red silk cord bearing five metal talismans connecting the two equally blood-red hilts, and had instinctively recognised that he was only looking at the tip of a fathomless mystery.

A month had passed, yet the memory still consumed Yamamoto like it was only yesterday.

Never before in Soul Society’s history had a zanpakutou manifested as a twinned pair. The alluring enigma incited his hunger in ways he had yet to understand, and for the first time in centuries he felt impatience as he yearned to discover this strange elemental secret. Their dramatic appearance had rescued the Gotei shiro and saved countless lives, silencing their long-time critics for the time, and Yamamoto had mercilessly taken advantage of the month’s lull to press home the point in the alliance council that he had been right all along, citing as supporting evidence how even the brutish rank and file shinigami were rallying around Jyuushirou in newfound respect and camaraderie.

As he came to the of his remembrances, Yamamoto had almost decided against delivering the news of Lady Mother Ukitake’s passing so that Jyuushirou would continue training at the Gotei. Quelling his selfish thoughts, Yamamoto had forced himself to keep to his original purpose, and had sipped his tea and began commenting on the cycles of the sakura trees, comparing their transience against their boundless ability to be reborn, and for the first time in several centuries, shared a poem that he particularly favoured about this very life and cycle of sakura that he was speaking on. At the end of his recital, he gently but simply delivered the news.

Jyuushirou had lapsed into agonised silence, his dark eyes stunned, then his dark lashes had fluttered down upon his ivory cheekbones and his white head had bowed. In a soft quavering voice, he had requested for bereavement leave. Yamamoto had given his permission with as much kindness as he could, and perhaps that was what seemed to break an invisible dam, for in the ensuing conversation that followed during that winter noon tea, in Jyuushirou's soft halting words, Yamamoto finally learned the tragic truth behind the Ukitake Family’s dangerous annual pilgrimage to that strange ruined shrine.

# # # # # #

In the summer of the following year, two months after Jyuushirou returned from his bereavement leave, Shunsui was due for his annual demonstration test of Zanjutsu and Hakuda on his eighteenth birthday. Despite the rules requiring that these demonstrations tests be performed solo, somehow Shunsui had shanghaied Jyuushirou into being his sparring partner. But he had done it with such an earnest effort to cheer up his subdued disciple-brother that Yamamoto had allowed it, with the light punishment that Shunsui perform his demonstration in the difficult terrain west to the walls of the shiro. The area was obscured and easily defended, yet presented a challenging outcropping of rocky slopes perfect for use by the Genji School to test talented students.

The pair worked hard and secretively for the succeeding three and a half months, with Shunsui obfuscating every time Yamamoto asked for details, and Jyuushirou simply looking at Shunsui to answer whenever _he_ was asked. Yamamoto had eventually given up and left the conspiring pair alone as he focused on dealing with his much subdued Gotei taichou colleagues, for he had deemed it more urgent to ascertain if they still held intent to harangue him about the Ukitake Family and give up Jyuushirou. Yachiru had wordlessly taken it upon herself to keep an eye on the pair on his behalf, for at their hearts they were still two sometimes errant boys. And on the day of the test itself, she had accompanied him to the rocky valley with a mysteriously whimsical smile. As they seated themselves on the ring of thirteen boulders which had been placed there ages ago to serve as seats for the thirteen judging Gotei taichou, he pressed her for details to which she had serenely counselled patience. Then his two uchi-deshi had entered the rocky arena that Yamamoto understood the reason for all their mystery.

Their attire was the least of it. Typical of Shunsui, he had taken to the extreme the creative licence mandated for these demonstrations. Instead of his white-and-blue shihakushou, he had made them both don matching sets of sleeveless kosode and hakama: his was in a full flamboyant red, with a white obi, his forearms encased in red vambraces, and Jyuushirou’s in a pristine light-blue, with a black obi, his forearms in black vambraces. Together they cut a striking pair; Shunsui had had a growth spurt in Jyuushirou's absence, and was now not only of a height with his disciple-brother, he also stood broader, heavier, with defined corded muscles gracing his tanned hirsute arms, his aristocratic lineage clearly showing in his lean masculine features beneath bangs of short wavy brown hair. Beside him, his recent bereavement temporarily set aside, Jyuushirou stood lithe and willowy, fair and refined, his alabaster arms gilded with supple muscles, his white braid luminescent in the morning light. They bowed and performed the ceremonial greeting and gestures of respect, then moved into positions for their first set. As one they settled into the deceptively relaxed swordsman stance, their posture seemingly casual, with feet instinctively placed precisely shoulder-width apart, their eyes holding each other’s gaze for a frozen instant. Then without warning, they erupted into furious movements.

They were incredibly fast.

It was only by virtue of his much greater experience and skill that Yamamoto was able to track the attacks and defences they had set up, for their shunpo surpassed even the best final year graduates if not already on par with the fastest shinigami. As he followed their breathtaking speed, he quickly understood the second reason for their secrecy: Shunsui had invented new Hakuda moves. He had woven shunpo into his swordplay and unarmed combat and designated Jyuushirou to attack him with a relentless, inventive barrage of Hadou combinations. They flew and weaved among the rocky outcrops with blinding speed, Shunsui a dizzying flying red blur flashing in and out between rock covers launching sharp lethal strikes at Jyuushirou, who glowed bluish-white as he fired blasts and explosions in succession with complex incantations summoned in his commanding ringing deep tenor. Rocks exploded as Shunsui evaded with agile spins, twists and vaults, and exhibiting even more creativity, he switched his katana from hand to hand in a showy display of ambidexterity as he wound his circle of attacks in a tightening ring around his opponent. Then Jyuushirou spun out of the closing trap, a new spell forming on his lips, and with no fanfare, Shunsui swept one palm down the blade of his asauchi and suddenly he held a [tachi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachi) in his right hand and a [wakizashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakizashi) in his left, their hilts bound in dark blue.

Yamamoto had sprung to his feet. As did every watching taichou. All around the rocky outcrops, shinigami spectators hushed into stunned silence as shock at the sight of Shunsui’s suddenly transformed asauchi tremored through the valley.

Only Jyuushirou remained unmoved. Simply drawing his own zanpakutou, in a lightning blur he parried an onslaught of shadow-fast blows as Shunsui launched into a dance of whirls and jabs with his materialised [daishou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daish%C5%8D) blades, steel meeting steel at such rapid speed that one continuous ringing escalated and reverberated throughout the small valley. Giving the stage to his disciple-brother, Jyuushirou kept his zanpakutou sealed, giving the entire audience clear views of Shunsui’s agility and speed as he spun and slashed his dual blades with deadly precision and skill. Yamamoto had narrowed his eyes when he noticed the differential speed of the daishou blades: the shorter wakizashi leading and setting up strikes, the longer tachi swooping in to finish off only a heartbeat behind. Then with a deep echoing command, “Hadou Number Four Byakurai!” Jyuushirou’s finger shot a beam of blue-white energy directly at Shunsui. Crossing his blades, Shunsui simply exerted reiatsu and in another modified Hakuda move, deflected the beam with his crossed blades. Flash-stepping back to the platform where they had begun their first set, Jyuushirou commanded, “Hadou Fifty-Seven Daichi Tenyou!”, spread one hand and flipped his open palm at Shunsui. All blasted rocks and debris littering the area flew up and hurtled towards him in a deadly wave that would break bones and crack skulls, only for Shunsui to spin into a whirlwind with his dual blades deflecting every piece of hurtling rock, not a pebble touching him, the modified Hakuda move transforming him into a cyclone. Then as the last rock fell, he descended into his starting position on the platform opposite Jyuushirou, coming to a standing rest with feet apart at shoulder-width, both weapons held pointing outwards at ready, not a drop of sweat on his tanned skin. Jyuushirou settled into position before him, feet also apart at shoulder-width, long curved tachi folded along the back of one pale sinewy arm as kidou faded from the long outstretched fingers of his other hand. And the demonstration was complete.

The pair held each other’s gazes, then as one they straightened, sheathed their zanpakutou, bowed to each other, and turning on their heels, bowed to the thirteen watching taichou.

For a long moment, the valley was silent.

Then, thunderous applause exploded as shinigami rose to their feet, stamping and madly cheering in a standing ovation.

Short, sharp and furious, the demonstration showcased in a few minutes such high level of techniques and strategies that any master could see Shunsui’s vast capacity for much, much more.

A wide, rakish grin had spread across Shunsui’s lean face. When he looked at his disciple-brother, clear pride shone in his face and pewter eyes, together with a deep emotion that Yamamoto had not expected to see. When Jyuushirou returned his grin with a smile that set his face aglow and his dark eyes shining, as the cheers and applause crescendoed, Shunsui impulsively hooked one tanned muscular arm around Jyuushirou’s neck, pulled him close and planted a quick resounding kiss on one white cheek, close to the side of his mouth. Jyuushirou’s dark eyes flew widen in surprise, his fair porcelain skin blooming pink.

It was a pure, innocent expression of love.

As hoots, catcalls and whistles deafened the ears along with good-natured ribbing from the rowdily cheering, stamping and applauding shinigami warriors, Yamamoto had pronounced that Shunsui had passed his test, then left the ranks of the rowdy shinigami masses to their celebrations. He refrained from showing his triumph as he walked past the contrite eyes of the few remaining taichou who still remained opposed to his decisions. And he had not stopped until he reached his study, and headed straight into his private library, where he himself in until the next dawn.

Shunsui had not only manifested the second dual zanpakutou of Soul Society, he had kept it solely to Jyuushirou, and Jyuushirou had kept it even from Yamamoto himself until it was time for its reveal. That alone had raised a multitude of questions. And though it was only a manifestation, but what a manifestation! Yamamoto had craved to understand more of it, his mind had whirled ceaselessly throughout that entire night around the singular, stark question: what would happen when Shunsui achieved shikai? But as dawn broke, and weak rays of the new sun stole into the dark solace of his library, Yamamoto had known he would not be the first to witness that particular phenomenon. He had known that the specific honour of being the first to see Shunsui’s shikai had been reserved long ago for Jyuushirou’s eyes only. And on hindsight, Yamamoto had realised that he had inadvertently and ultimately been responsible for this outcome, and should have been unsurprised that his exuberant, passionate, and oft impulsive younger disciple had fallen completely in love with his gentle, giving and hopelessly guileless eldest son.

# # # # # #

As if suddenly unsealing a hidden vent, upon manifesting his zanpakutou, Shunsui’s power and military talents burgeoned and grew in such explosive leaps and bounds that he completed his final three years of shinigami education in half the time. In the ensuing eighteen months, he attained mastery of martial arts to the highest levels, showing extreme gift in Zanjutsu and Hakuda, and belying his peace-loving nature and penchant for merry-making, absorbed all there could be learnt of military and war from strategies, operations, economics to histories. He was nothing less than prodigious. Thus it was with the unanimous support of all his instructors and the Gotei taichou that at the end of that year, in the early onset of winter, Yamamoto declared that Shunsui’s final graduation test be brought forward to his next birthday, which would fall in the following summer. When Shunsui donned the black shihakushou of a shinigami for the first time and commenced preparations for his final test, he was merely a year and a half away from the age of majority age of twenty-one. If he passed, and Yamamoto had no doubt he would, he would have completed the ten-year shinigami education in eight and a half years, following in the footsteps of Jyuushirou before him.

The developments of Shunsui and Jyuushirou were unprecedented in the history of the Genji School. Unto this day, both their records still remained unsurpassed when compared to the equivalents of the present day truncated curricula of the Shinoureijutsuin. That winter, and the spring and summer which followed, should have been joyous seasons for Yamamoto. He had been as proud as a father seeing his last child follow his elder child’s illustrious path.

But neither he, nor rank and file shinigami of the Gotei, had time nor leisure to spare for expressing their buoyant sentiments. For that particular winter melted into a series of flash spring floods and storms that pummelled Soul Society and wrecked lives, crops and property with a vengeance that Yamamoto had never experienced in all his eight thousand years of warfare and hard existence. Destitution spread like a virulent contagion throughout the inhabited lands and the Gotei itself became endangered as their own vassal farms lost crop and livestock, critical essentials to sustain the near forty thousand reiryoku of the shinigami army. Allied clans fared no better for their own armies were suffering severe agriculture losses. And as if kami was not through testing Yamamoto’s resolve, Jyuushirou began suffering setback after setback.

For where Shunsui had flourished with the manifestation of his zanpakutou, Jyuushirou headed in the completely opposite direction: achieving his shikai seemed to have uncovered an invisible bottomless pit that seemed to begin consuming his very life force from within. He steadily declined. It began with increasing episodes of sudden blackouts during which his entire soul seemed to vacate his body, causing his total loss of control over his reiryoku and bringing down electrical storms that further decimated whatever remained of livestock, crops and property that barely survived the floods. Then his lung disease returned with a ferocity that brought him down every other week and ate into his already slight frame that he began losing muscle mass. None in Soul Society in that spring could afford further losses, and with a heavy heart, Yamamoto was forced to seal his suffering eldest ward under a reiatsu limiting Bakudou spell, and it had nearly broken him when he realised that only a seal of a power and intensity equal to that of a Senkaimon could stop Jyuushirou’s destructive reiatsu storms. And for a time, as the seals locked the destructive power within his fragile body, Jyuushirou’s blackouts ceased to worsen the troubles of the flood wrecked realm.

But it also meant Jyuushirou was no longer able to continue his shinigami duties. It had wrecked his fortitude, and his condition degenerated to the point where all progress they had made unravelled and regressed to that dark storm-lashed night when Yamamoto first found him, as if he had never been trained. Shunsui’s heart and spirit had been ripped apart by the frightening decline of his beloved soul brother, and he could scarcely focus on preparing for his final graduation challenge. Yachiru had been beside herself with worry and fear as she tirelessly, sleeplessly worked week after week only to see each treatment defeated in succession without halting a single reishi of the killing disease. She had at last resorted to invoking the emergency Bakudou communication spell Kirinji had left her to seek her sensei’s assistance. A large, heavy cask had soon arrived before the portcullis of the Gotei shiro bearing Kirinji’s seal, and their hopes were elevated. Through the rest of that flash-flooded spring, their small adoptive family had banded together through pure stubborn will and iron faith that Jyuushirou would recover with the aid of the fabled healing waters of the Kirinden.

It was not to be. As the spring floods receded and began to rapidly parch into a scorching summer, it became clear that Kirinji’s legendary skill was failing to break the stranglehold of the bizarre persistent disease on Jyuushirou’s weakening body. The frequency of his blackouts only intensified, and his strength began to erode with a terrifying speed. It came to a point that Yamamoto had found himself teetering on the brink of succumbing to anguish that his eldest ward and uchi-deshi, who had ever only been gentle, kind, diligent and dutiful, should so perish thus before being given a real chance at life to fulfil the promise which he had been bequeathed.

Then Shunsui, obstinately refusing to submit to what seemed to be the inevitable, had sworn by his zanpakutou that he would postpone his final graduation test until his soul brother could rise to watch him from the front row seat and toast him with sake later. His anguished impassioned declaration of love and confidence had spurred Jyuushirou to struggle up from his sickbed to insist, with painful, labouring breaths, that Shunsui graduate as planned, and Jyuushirou would help him revise his lessons and prepare until the day of the test.

As the scorching early summer evaporated the flooded paddy fields into bogs, and baked the bogs into dry cracked earth, Yamamoto had watched, stunned and moved beyond measure, as Shunsui prepared for his graduation challenge with the discipline of a seasoned warrior, and Jyuushirou supported him with the faith and determination of a loyal blood brother. Every morning after their morning meals, Shunsui would wrap his elder brother in his quilted maroon yukata and carry him and his medicine box on his back to the rocky valley where he had passed his eighteenth birthday test. And every afternoon, he would return the same way, help Jyuushirou wash and settle in bed, then spend the rest of the day with his books beside his soul brother who would take him through quizzes until their evening repast, and thereafter, until Jyuushirou fell asleep from his night medication. Yamamoto said nothing when Shunsui moved into Jyuushirou’s room. The first night, he had spied Shunsui sleeping stiffly upright with his back against the wall and his arms protectively cradling Jyuushirou against his chest so that his soul brother could breathe better. Yamamoto had alerted Yachiru, and she had promptly developed an anti-inflammatory and disinfecting drink from infusions of fresh peony and chrysanthemum blooms that temporarily relieved Jyuushirou’s airways so that the pair could rest properly at night.

Years later, Yamamoto would realise that it was the sheer indomitable spirits of his two wards that had kept him steely and unshaken when, under cover of one dark, unbearably hot night, a council messenger had arrived carrying to his study the most widely signed petition he had ever received from the alliance.

The lead author of the petition had been the well-respected head of the Ryoudoji Family, Duke Ryoudoji, renowned for his objectivity and cool head. He had written, with honourable and calm words, that with the certainty of the impending drought, all alliance resources must be channelled to the survival of the farms and settlements and none could be left for Yamamoto’s continuing support of the Ukitake Family. And he had added, with abject apology to Yamamoto, that the petitioners had voted with an overwhelming majority that since a decade of support had resulted in naught save an incurable, dying young man, that Yamamoto was to cease his guardianship and instruction of Jyuushirou and return him to his family where the young Ukitake lord could spend his last days in peace surrounded by his biological loved ones. The petition conspicuously lacked the signatures of the most powerful clans, the Shihouin, the Kuchiki and the Shiba, which meant at least three of the great noble houses had chosen to stay neutral on the issue. But there had been enough signatures from a large enough number of honourable allies, and the justifications this time were so sound, that Yamamoto knew he could not refute. He had known well the finances and reserves of the Gotei, for he managed them directly himself, and he knew the petition this time had not been made out of spite. The only response he had been able to manage was to request that he see Shunsui through to graduation in a month’s time before he acted on the petition. His request had been granted but that had been the final allowance he would be given.

Yamamoto had kept the dire developments and his conviction firmly concealed inside of himself with an increasingly acute desperation, shared only with Yachiru and Choujirou. He gambled everything he had on the loyalty of the rank and file shinigami of the Gotei and their remembrance of how Jyuushirou’s shikai had saved their lives and their home base from rebels two years before.

As heat burned and dried the lands with forest fires, and the date of Shunsui’s final graduation test drew near, as his two wards worked with an intensity that filled him with pride, Yamamoto had led Yachiru and Choujirou on a desperate campaign to persuade the alliance to retract their ultimatum. He ensured that Shunsui’s graduation performance would be attended not only by Shunsui’s direct family, but also his grandfather Lord Kyouraku himself, with his fearsome retinue of commanders, and his daughter-in-law the Lady Ise of the infamously cursed Ise Clan. He also spared no effort to secure the attendance of the head of the Kuchiki, Shihouin and Shiba. Among the barracks, Choujirou rallied the friends and comrades of his two wards and without revealing any details, gave them the task of organising the celebration feast which ignited a rousing camaraderie in anticipation of Shunsui’s historic graduation. As the drought heightened, to distract themselves from the woes of a disaster-stricken realm the shinigami masses throughout the shiro speculated and betted with equal fervour that Shunsui would also achieve shikai in as spectacular a manner as his elder disciple-brother. Tales were retold of the strange and terrifying unleashing of Sougyo no Kotowari. Pressure on Shunsui mounted along with a healthy wave of solidarity and morale, for both Yamamoto’s wards were well-loved by their peers and comrades. It was not quite a declaration of war, but a clear signal to the petitioners that they were mistaken in their judgment.

When the day of his graduation arrived, Shunsui passed his final test without shikai but instead, displayed such high artistry of the new Zanjutsu, Hakuda and Hohou combination techniques he had developed, that the valley had shaken with uproarious cheering nearly bringing down the sun-bleached brittle rocks with wild stomping and clapping. He had finally proven to his parents and older brother that he was not the irresponsible underachieving insouciant they had always believed him to be, and rendered them speechless with his newfound discipline and gravity. Yamamoto had near trembled with pride as he pronounced his younger disciple the latest addition to the Gotei, hearing not a single breath of objection. Then celebratory revelry had erupted immediately thereafter with shinigami intoxicated with the highs of the stunning display of martial craft, and their desperation to forget the ills of their responsibilities for one night. Sheathing his dual zanpakutou, Shunsui had leapt down from the rocky outcrop, scooped Jyuushirou into his arms, and led retinues of their rowdily cheering comrades towards the feasting hall. Their traditional eleven-dish main course of the [honzen ryouri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honzen-ry%C5%8Dri) feast had been pared down to five in deference to their scarce food supply, and throughout the courses Shunsui had attentively cared for and patiently persuaded a wan Jyuushirou to partake of them. Pride and happiness had shone through Jyuushirou’s thin, pale visage throughout the night, though he could barely eat or drink despite Shunsui’s best efforts. By the end of the main course, dour-faced Lord Kyouraku, finally noticing his grandson’s loving and reverent devotion to his clearly fading disciple-brother, had understood.

And it had come to pass that in full view of all watching petitioners, Shunsui’s notorious, unpredictable and widely feared grandfather had silently risen and left his dais, walked to Jyuushirou, and placing a fresh bowl of gyokuro tea before him, delivered a formal bow of the highest respect and gratitude to a soul six millennia younger than himself. Yachiru had stifled a sob when the warlord’s scarred hands flew across the table to steady Jyuushirou’s shaking ones to help him lift the tea bowl. When the gesture was completed, to the complete astonishment of all eyes, the Lady Shihouin had wordlessly risen and presented to Yachiru a small lacquer box emanating with distinct Shihouin Kidou, and simply stated that it contained a combination of herbs developed by the Shihouin which were said to strengthen the soul and heal the body. Then as dessert was served, the head of the Shiba Clan had stood and ceremoniously presented to Yamamoto a gift for his two famous wards to commemorate their graduation into the formal service of the Gotei: a pair of combs that warriors used during campaigns but crafted in matching size and style, one with a pale-blue handle carved in the likeness of a carp, and the other with a magenta handle carved with the suggestion of an [oiran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oiran) which, when Yamamoto held it up for all to see, elicited a roar of ribald laughter and ribbing shoves at Shunsui. The show of support from three hitherto neutral great clans bolstered Yamamoto’s flagging spirit more than he could put into words. That night, he had bidden his guests to their appointed rooms with heartfelt goodnight and proudly seen his two wards to bed filled with new hope that come the next day, he would at last have the edge he so direly needed to stay the motion of the petitioners.

Yamamoto had waited for three days without acting, but the petitioners had withheld their ultimatum in face of his powerful new political alignment. Finally, when it was deemed safe enough, the Shiba, Shihouin and all the other guests had taken their leave. Shunsui’s parents and brother had headed back to their northern mountain home, while Lord Kyouraku himself continued to stay with a small team of his personal warriors, wishing to spend more time with his favourite grandson and his mysterious other half.

Thus, when the sun dawned on the seventh morning with a howl of despair from Shunsui, none of them had been prepared.

Shunsui had awakened to see the cold empty futon beside him, bearing no sign of Jyuushirou except four large envelopes addressed to each of them. Yachiru and Choujirou each had received a private letter. For Shunsui, his private letter had been accompanied by a tress of long silky white hair tied together with a crimson silk cord. But Yamamoto had found in his package only an official deed signed and stamped by Jyuushirou as the head of the Ukitake Family, formally releasing the Gotei Thirteen from all its obligations to his family, and a zither manuscript of a song composed from the poem about the cycle of sakura trees that Yamamoto had recited to him that winter noon tea two years ago. Jyuushirou had taken nothing beyond his essentials, Sougyo no Kotowari, his new pale-blue handled comb, and the maroon quilted yukata that once belonged to Yamamoto. With his powers still sealed beneath Yamamoto’s reiatsu limiting seals, they had no means of tracking him by reiatsu. Yamamoto had immediately sent an intercepting team towards the Ukitake Estate in hopes of meeting Jyuushirou there, while frantic comrades, regardless of the commands of their own taichou, organised and ranged out desperate search parties for days.

Yet nothing could be found, for despite having his reiatsu sealed, Jyuushirou’s early training had not relied on his powers. If he did not wish to be found, he would not be. The shiro fell into a distraught uproar in the wake of the voluntary exile of one who had not deserved any of his political condemnation. Shunsui had been crazed with worry and heartbreak, but Yamamoto had been incapable of consoling him. He had gathered his eleven taichou and had demanded, once and for all, that each of them set aside their political alignment and look hard into their souls and inform him if they truly wished to see one of their own be cast out to die.

He never received their immediate answers. For in the midst of that tensed assembly, runners from the west clad in the colours of the Shiba and Shihouin had burst stumbling through the portcullis of the shiro.

Incursions from the far west had struck into the central plains of Soul Society to raid the vassal towns and settlements for precious resources. The runners prostrated themselves in desperate pleas for the aid of the military might of the Gotei. Barricading his grief deep inside, Yamamoto had proceeded to do what needed to be done. He was silently grateful when Lord Kyouraku sent orders north to his son to deploy westwards, and flash-stepped behind Yamamoto as the Gotei mobilised in mass shunpo. Shunsui, who had flash-stepped close at his shoulder, had worn an emotionless mask, his wrecked heart locked away. Yamamoto had said nothing, for he could say nothing. Leaving Yachiru and Choujirou to defend the shiro, he had closed his heart and thrown himself headlong into the offensive.

The war had been short but brutal. The raiders were of an uncivilised tribe far to the west which had somehow captured and controlled Hollows as their war beasts. Shunsui had flash-stepped into their midst without hesitation and mowed them down without a single expression on his lean young face, and in the thick of the spraying blood and gore, Yamamoto glimpsed that daishou pair of tachi and wakizashi sweep their blades against each other and with a reverberating dark force that throbbed the very earth beneath them, those twin zanpakutou sprang forth as a deadly pair of large black scimitars. Without losing a pause, those deadly scimitars had whirled right into the melee and sliced off heads and lobbed off body parts in eerily silent, blinding, bloody vengeance. As sunlight slanted over the violent battlefield casting long shadows over corpses and rivers of spilled blood, if Shunsui seemed to disappear and reappear from the lengthening shadows, eyes stared in shock but none dared utter a word as the battle continued to rage around them. Only when the largest forces of the raiders had been killed did Yamamoto pull his younger ward aside to question him. And the only answer he had received was Shunsui’s terse emotionless reply that his twin zanpakutou shared the single name of Katen Kyoukotsu and that _she_ was waiting for Sougyo no Kotowari to return to carry on working on their joint technique.

Then there was no more time for questions, for suddenly the stench of blood and chopped bodies in the air was washed with a wave of salty sea winds tinged with ozone, and Yamamoto had whipped around to see furious dark storm clouds gather low on the northern horizon, ominously flickering with lightning in their roiling masses. The reiatsu waves that washed over them several heartbeats later pressed down like the heaving pressures of the deep ocean, and Yamamoto would recognise it anywhere, for he himself had kept it at bay for nearly a decade. Lord Kyouraku had taken one look at Shunsui and Yamamoto, and had told them to go. Leaving his ally to clean up the remaining battle, Yamamoto had plunged straight northwards in shunpo, Shunsui tensed and silent at his heels, and a loyal contingent of shinigami comrades bringing up their rear.

They had not taken more than a few flash-steps when they began encountering fleeing raiders and Hollows, dripping wet or bearing charred injuries. Unleashing Ryuujin Jakka, Yamamoto incinerated a path straight through them, clearing his way towards his precious goal. He paid no heed to what became of them as he charged past their burning figures and screams, flashing across the last several shunpo leaps into the heart of the storm. His heart stuttered to a frozen pause and his feet skidded to a stop as he emerged at the edge of a raw, circular crater freshly gouged into the very land.

There, high in the skies over the basin, reiatsu-stepping on air like a storm kami unleashing vengeance, was Jyuushirou’s slender form, pulling down lightning and tidal waves from the heavens with terrifying precision on furious raiders and Hollows surging on the opposite side of the crater, charring them like so much tinder and drowning them like so much driftwood. His long braid had come undone, and his white mane blew about his shoulders as his eyes burned completely blue-white. His outstretched fingers conducted the storm like a maestro and there was no sign of his zanpakutou. The very air pressed down upon them like a great invisible weight, nearly suffocating their lungs with viscous humidity, and lightning crackled through the atmosphere raising every single hair. Before Yamamoto could react, a dark shadowy whirlwind stormed past him towards Jyuushirou.

What followed next was something like a lurid dream, or a nightmare.

To the naked eye, a dense black tornado crashed into Jyuushirou, sending a gargantuan tempest slicing across the plateau. In the next breath, the storm cleared, and Shunsui was cradling a comatose Jyuushirou in his arms in mid-air, over a crater filled with body parts and seas of blood with not a single enemy left alive.

But Yamamoto, by sheer virtue of his skill, saw everything.

He saw the very storm itself retract into Jyuushirou’s hands reforming into Sougyo no Kotowari in their unsealed shikai state, one long, pronged blade whipping about to intercept and then _absorb_ the black tornado. Then as the spinning whirlwind resolved itself into the form of Shunsui, five distinct silvery chimes rang through the thunders of the battle, and the five talismans on the crimson silk rope connecting the twin hilts of Sougyo no Kotowari lit up in rapid succession with blinding blue-white light. The instant the last talisman burst into brilliance, the other long pronged blade unleashed a sweeping concentrated tempest of such fine, tight precision that like a heavenly scythe, the force sliced through the horde of raiders and Hollows like cutting through fields of reeds. Blood and innards sprayed as bodies fell and toppled into the crater below, joining those already decimated. When the sweep ended, no enemy was left standing. Then all reiatsu forces dissipated, both pairs of double zanpakutou re-sealed, and Jyuushirou shakily turned to Shunsui, asked for forgiveness, and fell unconscious into his soul brother’s anguished arms.

In the aftermath of that terrible day, Yamamoto had learned that during his preparation for his graduation test, Shunsui had quietly achieved shikai with Jyuushirou as his sole witness in that valley of rocks. He had subsequently refined his shikai and invented a joint technique with his soul brother, but no amount of persuasion or cajoling could make Shunsui elucidate more on what Yamamoto had seen over the crater on that fateful day. And after a time, Yamamoto ceased to press and allowed his stubborn younger ward and uchi-deshi to keep his secrets, for Jyuushirou had been laying insensate in Yachiru’s healing room in what she had diagnosed, with relieved tears, as a healing sleep. They had taken turns to keep vigil by his bedside, and Choujirou and a few of his wards’ loyal friends and comrades had rostered themselves in to spell them so that they could rest. And when the scorching summer segued into a dry humid autumn with no sign of Jyuushirou awakening, they had found themselves clinging on to hope with increasing ferocity, encouraged by the painfully slow return of healthy colour to Jyuushirou’s comatose face.

It was on a dawn late in autumn of that terrible year, as sunrise brought with it a gentle misting shower that gathered momentum and spewed into a heavy rain, finally endling that long, devastating drought, that Jyuushirou awakened. Yamamoto witnessed it, for he was keeping vigil at that moment, and the first person whom those dark doe eyes saw. Overcome, he simply gathered the thinned weakened frame of Jyuushirou into his arms and held him tight, and called him son for the first time.

Yamamoto waited until a week later, when Jyuushirou was up and about again and finally moving back into his routine, that he once more called his eldest into his study to share a tea, only this time to wordlessly return him the deed. And in Jyuushirou’s soft and halting words, he learnt that his eldest son, on his lonely heartbroken trek home sustained by nothing more than his will, his memories and the last of his strength, encountered a large breakaway contingent of the raiders heading north to take the Gotei shiro from the northwest. With his powers sealed, Jyuushirou had frantically turned back on shaking legs to warn his adopted home, and when the raiders had caught up with him and attempted to take his life, desperation and fear had driven him straight through Yamamoto’s reiatsu limiting seals, and directly into a bankai which broke all rules of zanpakutou.

# # # # # #

Unto this day, Yamamoto never discovered the cause of Jyuushirou’s blackouts during that terrible year. Shunsui achieved his bankai shortly after his soul brother but it was only a full century later that Yamamoto knew of it, for his younger ward took that long to feel comfortable enough to reveal it to him. However, once more, Yamamoto’s greatest reward for his forbearance was Jyuushirou. Achieving bankai not only completely reversed his eldest son’s decline of that year, but raised his powers to an entirely new level. While his health condition remained tumultuous and unpredictable relapses continued, his speed of recovery and strength escalated with such breathtaking speeds that Yamamoto was oft left dizzy simply keeping up with his instruction. But gladly did he pursue Jyuushirou’s development, for in the following decade, the remaining eleven taichou of the Gotei finally gave their answers. In their usual oblique manner, they replied by ceasing all their opposition. With too many of their subordinates bearing eyewitness of what happened that day in that crater, they could no longer continue to refute the foresight of Yamamoto’s decision. Neither did Yamamoto felt the need to say anything more to them on the issue. Instead, for the next fifty years, he continued supporting Jyuushirou’s siblings until the last of them became independent.

As for the allied clans, when word spread among them that Yamamoto’s judgment had been correct all along, they desisted on insisting that he renege on his barter agreement with the late Lady Mother Ukitake all those years ago. However, clan memories ran long and clan pride ran deep. While no more petition came forth, opposition to Yamamoto’s decision never completely faded, sometimes escalating to open clashes at council meetings, sometimes simmering to barely concealed tolerance. As the decades passed into the first century, rather than actively countering the clans’ dissensions, Yamamoto eventually took a passive defensive stance to protect his small family with as little violence as possible. For in the final analysis, they were all allies, all on the same side committed to the same cause even if they differed in their approaches. Thus a stalemate of sorts endured throughout the second century, interspersed with periods of internal conflict, but all remained cognizant of the larger picture and never let their disagreements degenerate into more than the occasional duel. By the first quarter of the fourth century, all opposition finally stopped when one dawn, Jyuushirou awoke and went about his day only to realise, at their evening repast, that he had been unconsciously controlling his reiatsu without thought. From then on, his true powers began to show.

And it was timely, for soon after mysterious incursions from the far north began to push down southwards. Shunsui and Jyuushirou began organising and leading counter strikes northwards past the northern mountain passes, reinforced by the Kyouraku armies. And when Hollow incursions and outbreaks of strife simultaneously escalated in the west and the south, stretching their responses, it was then that Yamamoto gathered his surviving taichou, Yachiru, Choujirou, his two adult disciples, and led the mass migration of the Gotei forces westward into the central plains of Soul Society. There, he established the new stronghold of the Gotei Thirteen and for the first time, the capital of Soul Society, in the centre node of the realm marked by the towering, rocky mesa the Shihouin had long named the Soukyoku Hill.

Yamamoto’s first task had been to reorganise and restructure the Gotei Thirteen to enable their shinigami forces to respond with increased speed and agility. Their effectiveness swelled to the point where their name alone struck fear into the ranks of their rivals and enemies. Yet even in those early days of the new Gotei Thirteen he had understood that they needed a longer term solution to sustain a brute force peacekeeping campaign. For the Gotei to truly conquer and eradicate all conflicts afflicting the lengths and breadths of Soul Society, the new and growing shinigami army needed a customised and permanent base of operations as their home, as their centre of development, and from where they could be supported by a new kind of government.

Aided by his two disciples and his band of taichou, he thus launched a political campaign and marshalled the support of the allied clans. Against those clans still mired in petty rivalries he waged a ruthless war of political chess against their ceaseless feuds. In a few years, he commandeered enough resources to commission the design and construction of an expansive, specialised self-contained new shiro. It would be a white city guarded by kidou-powered Sekkiseki boundary walls capable of completely hiding the forty thousand reiatsu signatures that would inhabit it as the new capital of Soul Society. He named their new stronghold the Seireitei, so that it would be an everlasting inspiration and reminder of the shinigami tenets of purity, justice and honour. In return, he allocated the most supportive clans with seats in the new governing body he named the Central Forty-Six Chamber, comprising of forty officials and six ultimate judges holding the mandate of the Soul King to adjudicate and decide on all matters of laws and key administration. With Jyuushirou’s talents in law behind him, he mercilessly abolished old laws and established new rules of the Chamber to eradicate double-standards and hypocrisy. At the end of the fifth decade, the Gotei Thirteen moved into their new base, and with the streamlined and far more efficient shinigami army at their command, rapidly imposed order and stability into all corners of the Soul Society and recalibrated its balance with all realms.

In this period, Yamamoto commenced his strategy for succession and replenishment of shinigami ranks. He renamed the Genji School as the Shinigami Academy and installed Shunsui and Jyuushirou as its first two student leaders with a twofold mission: a public mission to serve as shining examples to attract more enrolment, and a private mission to mobilise the student body to become the institution Yamamoto envisioned it to be. The traditional birthday demonstration tests were formalised into a system of annual tests and examinations, and the ten-year shinigami education were revised to prioritise teaching of the four major martial disciplines of Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohou and Kidou, and made available to all souls who displayed reiatsu of average levels and above. Military strategy training were crafted and made compulsory to those who showed aptitude. Necessity of the era had compelled him to relegate the equally essential but less urgent disciplines of mathematics, finance, history, politics, law, art and cultures to a later period to be added as and when suitable instructors could be found. The resultant full curriculum was shortened to six years from its previous ten years. The new focus produced results in merely a decade, for a succession of military and arcane talents began to graduate from the Shinigami Academy produced. Finally, for the last time, Yamamoto renamed it, calling it the Shinoureijutsuin, though forever after that, it remained affectionately called the Shinigami Academy.

And privately, during this time, Yamamoto took a key part of his personal library and began creating a new being who would become the ultimate bastion and repository of all truth and knowledge of Soul Society. He based the reiryoku of this new entity on that of his own, with the intention that it would serve the new government he was creating, and with the longer term goal that when the day came that his long-lived reiatsu came to an end, as all mortal things must, the new being, whom he named the Daireishin, would continue to serve Soul Society’s government long after his passing under the joint leadership of the two souls who had become as precious to him as his own flesh and blood.

If during this era of socio-political renaissance, Yamamoto had ensured that the outskirts of the newly charted Seventy-Eighth District of Eastern Rukongai received more regular patrols than other wild parts, particularly in the neighbourhood of a ruined shrine sheltering the statue of a strange forgotten god shaped like a forearm, no one had dared speak a word of it. Only Jyuushirou wordlessly understood, gratitude glimmering in his dark eyes whenever those patrols were mentioned.


	3. Concluding The Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yamamoto realises his own sons have drawn a line against him.
> 
> This chapter takes advantage of the missing emotional gap in the canon scene to inserts important introspections of Yamamoto that set the wheels turning for this saga.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Reading notes:**  
>  • Japanese cultural terms are explained in hyperlinks to the Japanese word.  
> • AO3 doesn't allow opening links in new tabs or windows, so right-click on the link to see the explanations.  
> • This work assumes readers are familiar with the published canon of 'Bleach', hence terms used in canon will not be explained.
> 
>  **Author's creative rights:** This chapter is a derivative work. The author makes no claim of copyright to any part of this chapter except for the thoughts, perspectives, and points-of-view of the character of Yamamoto. However, the author will be pleased to discuss further development of these with the Copyright Owners.

_Would he now end the golden age they went through so much together to build?_

As centuries moved on, other taichou were appointed but they came and went, leaving Shunsui and Jyuushirou to continue leading the good fight with Yachiru and himself to keep stability and ultimately, preserve the balance. Together, they shaped and led Soul Society into a new era of peace, balance and prosperity. The four of them remained the steadfast cornerstones of the Gotei Thirteen, but it was Shunsui and Jyuushirou who had driven real progress and development. Much more than their incredible reiryoku and mastery of their powers and martial prowess, their characters, emotional intelligence and humanity had augmented him and the Gotei Thirteen in ways none had unexpected. They had achieved far more than they could have with than without his two prodigious wards and disciples. They were gifts from kami, and Yamamoto had staunchly cherished his gifts. In the last year of their mission with the Shinigami Academy, the accomplishments of his two sons and the values they had come to symbolise won them unanimous support for their appointments as the first taichous of the third generation of the Gotei Thirteen. They were the first graduates of the Shinigami Academy to achieve that respect and honour.

_Would he now end their millennia old bonds?_

Yet the alternative was not an option.

Their enemies had sought to seed sedition for centuries. Yamamoto knew exactly who they were, for he had Jyuushirou at his side to fight that secret fight. He had expected that like any other government, there would always be those who would be disgruntled for one reason or another, and in the case of Soul Society, he had expected malcontents from those who had either been born without reiryoku or failed the entrance examinations of the Academy or for personal reasons, disagreed with the laws of the realm. But he had not expected sedition from those whom he had entrusted with the very system of governance he had created for the sake of Soul Society. And against such malfeasance, he must continue to resist. He, and his two disciples, must carry on the fight.

But the moment Jyuushirou had hurled the rope of the Shihouin Shield into the heavens and tethered the Kikou’ou with the immense strength of his reiatsu, the moment Shunsui had joined him, the moment the youngest pillars of the Gotei Thirteen unleashed their combined reiatsu that shook Soukyoku Hill and exploded the Kikou’ou into a rain of flaming debris, Yamamoto realised that his disciples had drawn a clear line.

_Had the erosion now spread to even the two souls he had raised, instructed and been as proud of as if they were his own sons?_

Yamamoto stared through the glimmering superheated air at Shunsui and Jyuushirou, his soul throbbing with what he had to do. The inferno of Ryuujin Jakka roared around them in an impenetrable ring ensuring that there would be no escape from his punishment. He had meant it when he said it would not be a usual beating.

Pain biting through his entire soul, he gave his former disciples his final command.

“Release your swords already. Surely you do not wish to be burned to ashes without a fight.”

Through the wafting ashes, the broad shoulders of Shunsui’s tall form visibly drooped, the usual flamboyance of his flowered pink silk kimono suddenly pallid in face of imminent execution at the hands of his long-time sensei and adoptive father. Though his stance was calm and relaxed, sweat dampened his lean tanned face as his reiatsu swelled in roiling shadowy layers against Yamamoto’s fiery pressure, his tachi and wakizashi held in deceptively relaxed grips. The regret in his sigh was palpable even from this distance and through the roar of the inferno.

“I guess it can’t be helped, ne,” he said wearily to his soul brother, his low languorous voice tinged with a hint of helplessness. When no answer was forthcoming, he cast a glance to his side.

Jyuushirou stood stock still beside him, his tall slender frame wreathed by his wildly blowing white mane strobed with fiery hues from the light of the raging flames, his alabaster skin aglow and glistening with beads of sweat. His dark eyes were no longer beseeching, for as Yamamoto had stood staring at them in silence, Jyuushirou had understood without words the turmoil that had passed through Yamamoto. Those deep-set mahogany gaze now burned with injustice, anger and fear, as those angular noble features tensed and creased with determination. His knuckles whitened on the crimson silk-bound hilt of his tachi.

Shunsui’s next words to him were a steely query.

“Shall we, Ukitake?”

The dark gaze of Jyuushirou, intense with fatal resolution, narrowed. Then accepting the inevitable, he softly rasped, “Yes”, closing his eyes and lowering his face in silent anguish. Yamamoto momentarily saw a flash of a young, unmarred Jyuushirou on that long ago late winter morning tea, of how his gentle eldest son had closed his eyes in agonised silence as he received the news of his mother’s passing. The memory faded as Jyuushiro lifted his dark-lashed eyes and held his stare.

Then simultaneously unleashed reiatsu and shikai.

Salt and ozone-tinged reiatsu tidal wave exploded. Jyuushirou’s tachi glowed blue. “ _All waves, rise now and become my shield! Lightning, strike now and become my blade!_ ” A second shockwave followed as the weapon slid apart into two identical swords, now longer and slimmer, each bearing a secondary backward cutting blade on its back, accompanied by the silvery ringing of five metal talismans on a crimson reishi rope materializing between the twin crimson hilts. “ _Sougyo no Kotowari!_ ”

Upon the ebb of the tidal waves came pummelling, tearing, blunt dark force. “ _Flower Wind rage and Flower God roar! Heavenly Wind rage and Heavenly Demon sneer!_ ” Crossing the tsuba of his wakizashi before the tsuba of his tachi, Shunsui, with a heavy finality, stroked his wakizashi blade down the length of his longer tachi blade, the air pulsed once, and then both weapons sprang into a pair of large, lethal black scimitars gleaming with menacing intent. “ _Katen Kyoukotsu!_ ”

Both shikai rocked the ground and very air.

Their sheer powers cut a deep pang into Yamamoto’s heart, for he knew neither he nor Soul Society would ever again witness their equals. Despite having been sealed for so long, neither zanpakuto had changed one bit, both still the only dual manifestations in all of Soul Society, their raw magnificence reflecting the complex natures of their masters.

Long past being boys terrified of their own powers, they now stood tall, indomitable and powerful, unperturbed in the heart of Ryuujin Jakka’s fiery reiatsu inferno that seared the heavens and vaporised the clouds.

Shunsui cut a broad, colourful silhouette whose flamboyance hid a simmering threat, his lazy languor tinged with dark-edged danger, Katen Kyoukotsu in his hands thrumming watchful and deadly.

Jyuushirou a lithe white figure whose willowy slenderness concealed an intensely raging lightning ocean storm, Sougyo no Kotowari in his grasp glinting mysterious and lethal.

The sight of them stole Yamamoto’s breath and his resolve nearly faltered.

His sons.

Where one went, the other always followed. _Sooner or later_.

No one, not even Shunsui and Jyuushiro themselves, knew the truth Yamamoto had discovered long ago.

They were two conjoined souls, born of the same depthless and unfathomable black force. Though one was momentarily allowed to live in the light, ultimately, they returned to the same source. There were scarcely any precedents for them. Despite his extensive research over millennia, much still remained unknown about their souls, but what little he had accumulated pointed to one inevitable conclusion: when a reiryoku was too vast for one soul, it would manifest as two distinct souls with distinct personalities and zanpakutou. This was the only possible explanation for the way that Yamamoto discovered Shunsui and Jyuushirou, separately yet so inexplicably tied to the fallen forgotten god of that derelict shrine. It meant that where one went, the other would eventually follow. Wherever and whatever the _ultimate_ destination would be.

The execution of one was as good as the execution of the other.

Shunsui and Jyuushirou were themselves the founders and enforcers of many of their laws. And they had drawn the line. Against him. Against all they knew.

There was no way Yamamoto could honourably pardon them to save their lives.

He had to proceed.

He had to honour Shunsui and Jyuushirou themselves.

“Are you ready?” Yamamoto asked for the final time, his heart shattering into a million pieces.

“Anytime!” Shunsui returned with jaunty confidence.

Yamamoto charged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NEXT IN PART 2:** See the published canon through the lens of this universe, glimpse into the present-day relationships between the Four Pillars of the Gotei, and observe Yamamoto, Ukitake, Kyouraku and other supporting canon characters through the eyes of Unohana, who had long given up violence to focus on saving lives. Delve into Unohana's memories of her thousand-year love for her protégé Ukitake.

**Author's Note:**

> **ON CONTINUING UPDATES:**
> 
> Experts say writing good stories should start with a good ending, then fit in a beginning and a middle to that ending and progress in a linear fashion. But developing this spin-off is more like painting, beginning with skeleton sketches, filling in the base colours, then going over and over each part with more dabs and nuances of colours to build up details and realism. Thus, published parts and chapters will continually be edited and refined until the final part is concluded. If you like this work, best is to bookmark and check back often, or subscribe to get the latest updates. When this series is done, a good illustrator is needed to publish all parts as one single full-length English language dōjinshi novella.
> 
> **GIVING FEEDBACK/SUGGESTIONS:**
> 
> All authors love it! [This writer says it best](https://edohikaro.tumblr.com/post/184073572879/heathenvampires-heathenvampires-one-of-the)! 
> 
> Already liked/reblogged this story on Tumblr? Thank you so much! Don't forget to spread your love on AO3 too and **drop a guest kudos/comment** below! It’s anonymous, I won’t know who you are. But all others will hear you and know Ukitake is getting his own saga, he’s a damn good hero, and ShunUki is Bleach’s OTP!
> 
> Prefer to talk to me in private? Do what others do, talk to me on [email](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edo_Hikaro/profile) or [Tumblr](https://edohikaro.tumblr.com/ask), I keep secrecy and I don't bite!
> 
> **AND FINALLY FOR THE BORING DISCLAIMER I HATE TO WRITE BUT HAVE TO:**
> 
> Please refer to Series Notes [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1201744).


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